COMMENTARY

Roundtable Discussion of the JonBenet
Ramsey Case

By Scott RossThe 700 Club

CBN.com
 GORDON ROBERTSON: Well, joining us now is Scott Ross
with more insight into the Ramsey interview and the investigation. I know
we talked before you did the interview and frankly, you didn't even want
to do it.

SCOTT ROSS: I talked to your dad and tried to get out of it, too.

LISA RYAN: Why did you not want to do it?

SCOTT: It carries a lot of weight. And I had to go through my
own internal process. I can break it out this way -- as a man, as a journalist
and as a minister of the Gospel I went through a process. I can tell you
this, I found in my own being that I was holding things against these
people and I didn't even know them. Second, I had borne false witness
based on no evidence but hearsay. That's me. I did that. I had to get
clean.

A number of years ago I had to go do an interview with a guy I didn't
like. I am not trying to be super spiritual, but I had to go on a fast
so I could deal with this man. I didn't like him. But to be an objective
journalist and speak to him I went through this process. This job is weird.

TERRY MEEUWSEN: It provides circumstances that are often strange
like this. And I think that you could say that you are speaking of an
experience that certainly you are not alone in. Look at all of the e-mails.
None of these people know them. It's really an interesting thing to watch
all of this unfold. We live in a country where presumably you are innocent
until proven guilty and yet everyone of us, when this happened, I think
had speculation about what we thought.

GORDON: But I think we have been programmed to believe what we
hear through the news media and believe what we read in newspapers …

LISA: And to assume that if it is on television, it is true.

GORDON: Having been a subject of a couple of newspaper stories
that were not true, I have a completely different perspective now that
each story has a particular angle and a particular opinion behind it.
There's no such thing as objective journalism. It just flat doesn't exist.

TERRY: Scott, one of the questions that a lot of people have asked
me, and maybe you can shed light on this because it was not a part of
what we saw in the interview with the Ramseys, but you had an opportunity
to spend quite a bit of time with them -- they talked about their faith
-- you talked to them about their faith. But did they have a moment in
time where they came to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ? A specific
time where they didn't understand before and then they realized and actually
committed their lives?

SCOTT: I can't give you time, date, or place. But they are confessing
Christians. There is no question in my mind about that. So I give them
the benefit of the doubt on it.

We say this backwards -- Jesus said, "If you are not against me, you
are for Me." You tell me. You hear what is coming out of their mouths.
Now we also know that confession is made with the mouth for salvation.
But then you look at the fruit of our lives. What about the fruit of your
life? I wrote a piece called "Our
Secret Lives" -- If everything I did with Nedra, my wife at home
of 33 were on camera -- I get nervous.

LISA: I think we all would.

SCOTT: People can make an observation and you are prejudged. This
is probably the heaviest story I have ever had to deal with. This Bible
verse that I read when I was struggling with doing this story. It's from
proverbs; "A reliability reporter is a healing presence." That helped
me because I wanted to help bring healing to this thing.

There are also a number of Scriptures that talk about the fact that there
is a God in heaven that knows everything we are doing -- everything. I
asked the Ramseys if they were afraid of truth, if they were afraid of
justice. Then there is a verse that I had written down here from Job 24.
"The murderer rises at dark that he may kill. At night there are thieves
and robbers waiting for the dark when no one will see me, they say. They
mask their faces so no one will know them."

GORDON: Let's get back to the Ramseys and the facts of the case.
Where does the police investigation stand.

SCOTT: It is still an open case. To what degree they are pursuing
it I don't know. But it is still an open case. There's been a lot of political,
inside stuff. People have resigned. It's been an embarrassment to the
police department and to the D.A.'s office in Boulder, Colorado. This
thing has been mishandled any way you look at it, legally, and the politics
that got involved. A lot of people have lost face in this thing.

LISA: What are some of the facts in this case to convict them
or not convict them?

SCOTT: Have you heard both sides? I recited in part of the interview
the fact that there are still open questions about DNA. This was edited
from the tape. I don't want to embarrass anyone. But I asked them if they
had in fact cooperated with the police. And they said they did. There
was a pubic hair found on the blanket that did not match the Ramsey's
DNA. I asked the Ramseys if they had submitted to that kind of scrutiny.
And they physically stripped naked and had their pubic hair removed --
it is demeaning at any level. But it was necessary. And it didn't march
anyone in the family.

TERRY: Just the sheer agony of being accused of killing your child
I think is beyond comprehension.

SCOTT: John Ramsey said something to me that struck me. He said,
"Scott if you were a guest in our house that night, you would be living
under the same umbrella of suspicion we are." And yet there is still evidence
on the other side that seems to point to them.

LISA: Well it seems that most people are making their opinion
based on personalities and how they are projecting themselves. That's
where people are coming up with the opinion as to whether they are guilty
or not. Perhaps they seem reserved or not credible. And when it may come
down to personality or even that their grieving process had been interrupted
with all of these accusations. Maybe that's affecting how we view them.

TERRY: Scott, where do they see all of this going? Where do they
see all of this going? You talked about the police investigation. But
I know that they are conducting their own investigation. And I don't know
where the money to do that is coming from. How does one do that long distance
in an effective manner?

SCOTT: They moved to Atlanta and it is an ongoing investigation.
They have hired their own detectives and interestingly enough one of the
former lead detectives from the Boulder police department is now working
for the Ramseys. He believes they are innocent. That's his statement and
that's in their book. I wanted to talk to him but he is not talking to
anyone at the moment because he's working on the case.

They are paying for this through sales of their book and through various
other support. They set up a JonBenet Foundation and I believe it's not
for profit so that people can help in any way they can.

Where is it going? I don't know. You know what? This thing about prayer,
we believe in it. Yeah, we do and that thing about her being healed. Patsy
being healed is pretty amazing. Will God reveal hidden things? Pat Robertson
wrote a book, and he took the title from the Scriptures, the thing you
do in secret will be "Shouted From The Housetops." Is that true?

I will say this; I asked John Ramsey and Patsy if they were afraid of
justice and truth. And I said there are people praying throughout the
world as we are doing this interview. He called me later and talked to
me on the phone. He said, "That impressed me as much as anything I heard."
And I said, "John, we can have those people intercede in the Spirit. I
don't know how to pray. But, Romans 8 says pray in the Spirit and then
you are always praying in the will of God. Pray in the Spirit and see
what God does. And if you guys are guilty, it is going to be revealed.
It is, in front of the whole watching world."

And he said, "I am not afraid of that. Will you ask people to pray to
that end?" I just said it.

TERRY: Let me ask you without asking you to qualify any of this
specifically. Was your mind changed by meeting them in the interview from
what you may have thought ahead of time?

SCOTT: I had an attitude. My attitude had to be changed.

TERRY: But you were talking about sensing a need to change that
before you went.

SCOTT: Yes, I did. Things have affected my thinking. If I were
on a jury, Terry, could I find them guilty beyond a reasonable doubt?
No. I could not. I have too many, I believe, reasonable doubts. Does that
mean that they are not guilty?

LISA: Only God knows and the Ramseys have asked us to pray. They
are not afraid of God revealing the truth.

GORDON: Lord, we ask right now for the Ramseys, that you would
reveal truth. They said they are not afraid of your justice and your revelation.
And we ask right now in the name of Jesus, that you reveal the cause of
this terrible murder and who is guilty, Lord God. We ask that you reveal
it now in Jesus' name. Amen.

NOTE: When the Ramseys chose to write
a major book with a Christian publisher, they moved their story and the
tragic murder of their daughter into the worldview we cover. We felt it
was vital for someone to ask them the hard spiritual questions and boldly
address the unresolved questions about the murder of JonBent.

We are asking television viewers and Internet users of CBN.Com and
The 700 Club to join us in praying for the Lord to reign down justice
and righteousness in this open case and reveal the killer and the truth
regarding the case.